Waltham Voices: Family School promotes literacy

Friday

Jul 15, 2016 at 10:40 AM

By Anne Dugan

With the support of a $9,000 Family Fund grant from Foundation for MetroWest (FFMW), Waltham Family School (WFS) is able to expand its innovative interactive literacy program to serve Waltham families learning English at five preschool locations.

The program, a key component of the Waltham Family School, facilitates positive parent-child interactions. The weekly classes focus primarily on language and literacy development, engaging the parents in their preschool child’s learning. Interactive literacy strengthens parent's skills to help their children succeed and introduces community resources for families. Parents and their children are encouraged to read together daily in order to foster healthy reading habits for life.

WFS program coordinator Britta McNemar said, "Thanks to the MetroWest grant we are able to sustain the (interactive literacy) program that serves low-income families with limited educational resources, and especially reach those with special needs children." She added that the FFMW grant "ensures that we can offer a teacher at all five preschool locations to continue the (interactive literacy) program every week for the entire year."

Waltham Family School serves English Language Learner families by preparing their preschool children for kindergarten and by teaching English to the parents, many of whom had limited educational opportunity in their home countries. The goal is for the children to be ready to learn, for the parents to become partners with the schools to help their children succeed and for families to become engaged in the community.

During the first month of preschool, the parents are given the opportunity to observe their child in the classroom. Parents familiarize themselves with the routines and expectations of the students. Each Friday morning, parents engage with their child in the preschool classroom with an interactive literacy teacher. After the activity in the classroom, parents meet with the teacher to reflect and discuss their observations and suggest how families can incorporate school lessons at home. Later in the school year, parents interact with their child in the classroom with various reading, art and language activities. For many parents, this is an opportunity to gain insight about their child and get ideas on how to raise a curious child.

Eugenia Gomez, a native of Guatemala and mother of twin daughters, is a parent in the WFS program.

"Fridays are the most important day of the week for me," she said. "I learn what the children learn."

Eugenia became aware of the WFS program through a visiting interactive literacy teacher at Northeast Elementary School, where her daughters were enrolled in the special education preschool program. It was a proud moment for her when she visited the WFS classroom a few months into the school year. She noticed one of her daughters was pretending to be a teacher.

"When I visited I almost cried. They had made so much progress," she said. "It's the most beautiful experience of my life."

In addition to Waltham Family School's preschool interactive literacy class, children are attending preschool at Stanley and Northeast Elementary, as well as, Head Start programs in Waltham and Newton.

A graduation ceremony on July 29 will celebrate the success of all families in the program. Graduating families will be awarded certificates to celebrate that their children are moving from preschool to Kindergarten. All interested community members are invited to join.

- Anne Dugan is a development coordinator at the Waltham Family School.